Our Organization

Our mission is to promote, assist, and support childcare and childcare-related organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our emphasis is on benefits provided to children. However, support for the family can be a focus, as in the case of homeless children.

The Foundation has two main purposes. The first is to rent a facility at less than market rate to a local childcare provider. The childcare facility is located at 1101 Masonic Avenue in San Francisco. The second is to provide small grants to childcare centers and other organizations that serve children and meet the Foundation's eligibility requirements.

What We Do

The Asbury Children's Foundation has two activities:

To make available a facility to deliver child care services

To support and promote child care and related services

The first mission is accomplished by owning a complex of three buildings on a large lot in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. The buildings are leased to operating child care programs at below market rate rents.

The money derived from rent on the the realestate and investment income is reclycled into grants to child-care and child related services.

History of the Foundation

The Foundation was established by a number of civic minded residents of San Francisco's Haight Ashbury District. They saw the need for a child care in the neighborhood and were willing to assist in establishing a child care center.

When a group of buildings, suitable for child care, became available at 1101 Masonic Avenue, they established a real estate partnership and purchased the buildings.The partners leased the property to the Haight Ashbury Children's Center, a preschool child care program. The partnership operated for several years.

Since Masonic Avenue, near Haight Street, is a commercial area, 1101 Masonic Avenue was subject to high property taxes. The tax was a significant part of the annual budget for a child care provider. Since the property was owned by a "for profit" organization, the charitable tax exemption, allowed by California law, was not available. So the Ashbury Childrens Foundation was established as a tax exempt organization and Federal and California tax income tax exemptions were obtained. The partners owning the property made a charitable, tax deductible, gift of the property to the Foundation.